Interesting piece. The Madonna album is disappointing, in that musically it's quite good, but lyrically, it goes off the rails more than a little. Meanwhile, the new Bruce album is, of course, somewhere between very good and absolutely great.
But I think they were going for different things, and as cogent as that piece could be at times, I feel like he really missed a central point, which is that Bruce is NOT trying to stay relevant, whereas Madonna is—and I can't fault her, or any artist, for that. You can critique the end result, which in this case is decidedly spotty, but I don't think there's anything inherently problematic with an artist trying to change and keep up with the times. And massively rich and famous as she is, I think that especially goes for females.
Meanwhile, this bit:
Springsteen has made a Western-themed album about men struggling to reclaim their dignity in an America that’s slowly fading away. His message for our changing world: Don’t forget about men!
seems to really miss the mark. There are a lot of people saying exactly that, but Bruce ain't one of them. If there's any relation to the silly, odious Men's Rights type movement here, it's in Springsteen showing how getting older as a white man doesn't need to mean you turn bitter or resentful or scared—that you can do it with at least a certain amount of grace and acknowledgment that if things didn't turn out exactly the way you'd expected, well, that's true for almost everyone, and sometimes it's your own damn fault. (And sometimes it's not...but it's pretty much never the fault of The Other, despite how much easier it is to blame Them.) And maybe it's still not too late to keep trying or to try again.